Pages

Friday, April 4, 2014

I’ve been reading The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
by Umberto Eco for weeks now. Granted, I’m
reading it as a book on tape while driving to and from teaching writing
classes, but it’s a long book and Eco’s writing is notoriously dense, as is
that of many Italian writers. In this novel, what’s most impressive are the
connections he makes between memory and identity in this story of a brilliant
amnesiac, Senior Bodoni, who can quote everything from Nabokov to Eliot all
with enviable ease, yet in losing his sense memory as a result of an apparent
stroke has lost himself.In gradually gaining the sensory knowledge that memory
supports, Eco brings to life such otherwise mundane objects as a jar of mustard
and a clove of garlic using his own intricate intellect, as revealed through
Bodoni, whose very name is a form of writing, the font known as Bodoni. Yet,
not so mundane in the story is the recurring metaphor of fog, especially the gray
fog for which the city of Milan is known and in which Senior Bodoni perpetually
finds himself.Amid the angst of a man who knows much except himself, the
concepts of name and the process of naming go to identity and more, because what
Bodoni is trying hardest to remember is his first love. Isn’t that what all of
us, in one way or another, seek to do as we return over and over again to
memory and to the meaning we long for in the elements of daily life?What love
are you trying to recapture, perhaps in your writing?

Subscribe to the Blog

Ridgefield Writers Conference

One of the most instructive short conferences for writers

Word for Words, LLC, Writing & Editing Services

An award-winning development editor, Adele specializes in manuscript evaluations and editing for emerging and established fiction and nonfiction writers. For information, contact Adele or visit Word for Words.

Follow by Email

inkPageant

Subscribe to My Podcast

BlogCatalog

Blogflux

OnTopList

About Me

Adele Annesi is an award-winning writer, editor, and professor of writing, English and English as another language. She is also a co-author of Now What? The Creative Writer's Guide to Success After the MFA. Co-founder of the Ridgefield Writers Conference and a professional book editor, Adele crafts articles, columns, reviews and stories for journals such as 34th Parallel, The Fairfield Review, Hotmetalpress, Feile-Festa, Marco Polo Arts Magazine, Midway Journal, Miranda Literary Magazine, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Pyramid, Tertulia, The Washington Independent Review of Books and Southern Literary Review, where she was managing editor. Her work has also been anthologized for Chatter House Press and Fairfield University, where she received an MFA in creative writing. Her essay on Italian citizenship is part of the Clarion Award-winning Essays About Life Transitions by Women Writers, and her flash fiction has been adapted for the stage. A professor of English and writing, Adele is completing a novel set in Italy. Her website is Adele Annesi.